The Cube already had well documented design failures including lacking a fan which made the machine quiet but prematurely killed many machines from heat. The legs were also prone to cracking and failure.
I think the new Mini form factor for 'pro' users already exists - it's the Mac Pro. It's already been detrimentally called the Mac Mini Pro.
Apple have decided that the high end pro users who bought the old Mac Pro didn't deliver enough profit for them so they tried to design something should have been interesting for folks with less high end use cases but they
increased the low end selling price rather than dropping it.
Part of the problem could be having it assembled in the USA. Who knows how much that is adding to the cost price but if Apple are investigating shifting production back to China to reduce the cost and increase the build quality that would be a positive step.
They could well put Ryzen plus a single Vega GPU into the Mac Pro case later this year (or current Polaris RX 480 GPU) and then drop the price but that would be a marketing disaster for Intel unless they offered a serious incentive to Apple to stay Intel exclusive.
Phil Schiller declared all those years ago now that the 2013 Pro would be the form factor going forward for 10 years but something has gone seriously wrong for it to go over 3 years with no update (not even a speed bump).
During that time we've had:
1. Anand of Anandtech point out some issues with the architecture of the machine.
2. People noting the cheap thermal paste used meaning core temps higher.
3. There's a repair programme for some
GPUs in some Mac Pro models.
4. The same GPUs were outdated on release, macOS doesn't fully use twin GPUs anyway leaving one idle much of the time on many applications.
5. It was aimed at FCPX users - a $300 product - many of these folks already left the platform due to the software itself and those who are left won't invest in a product that has not been updated in 3 years, sells for the same price (more if you are in Europe thanks to exchange rates) and has an unknown future.
It can't be a profitable line in the state that it is, but given what Phil Schiller said at the unveiling it will be a PR fail if the Mac Pro cylinder went away entirely. He wants to be able to say that they took the insights they made from the Mac Pro and applied it to, for example, an 8k iMac Pro which puts the high end hardware into a cylinder 'leg' while leaving an extremely thin 30" panel which is adjustable and less prone to damage due to heat from a CPU/GPU that's too close to the panel.
The annual NAB video show is coming up and we hear that there was a
secret Apple briefing at last year's event. I assumed that would mean a new Mac Pro in October - we all know that never happened - so I reckon it was probably the Touch Bar that was being referred to.
Given that video professionals seem to be getting the drop on future stuff (under an NDA) I don't think it's too much of a stretch for FCPX professionals to be briefed on a future version of that software being fully 8k compatible within a year, or compatible with the latest Nvidia cards, for example. They wouldn't be told anything specific but it might be enough to stem what could be a massive exodus this year.
Since the last NAB show, we've had Nvidia release the GTX 1080 and now we have AMD on the scene with an 8-core Ryzen at half the cost of the equivalent Intel CPU.
Just imagine what is going through the mind of a video editor now who needs new kit. Go with Premiere Pro, build a 8 core 16 thread Ryzen PC
this summer with one or more GTX 1080 GPUs and watch it STOMP all over the Mac Pro at a fraction of the cost.
On a personal note, I get that Apple want to maximise profit on their machines but Pro users with failed machines can't afford the time out getting the thing swapped or repaired. If they allow you to upgrade RAM yourself they should at least leave you with a standard M.2 slot for your own SSD which could then be removed and put into a replacement machine to reduce downtime. They shouldn't be selling models with poverty spec 256Gb SSD anyway just to make people fork out for a 512Gb or 1Tb SSD.
for our new HTPC / micro server combo unit and the bloody thing is faster on the CPU than my 2015 iMac and im seriously debating once again trying to steal it to replace that iMac using a spare pro monitor.
